BellSouth’s conservation efforts are focused in three primary areas:

• Waste management
• Energy management
• Transportation impacts

Waste Management

In 1994, BellSouth became a charter member of the EPA’s WasteWise program, a voluntary partnership designed to help businesses implement practical methods for reducing municipal solid waste. Partners commit to achieve results in three areas: waste prevention, recyclables collection and purchase or manufacture of recycled products.

Since becoming a WasteWise member, BellSouth has found innovative ways to prevent waste and benefit its bottom line. Examples include:

• Printing double-sided customer bills has reduced the need for more than 650 tons of paper.
• Buying fiber optic cable on reusable steel reels rather than wooden ones.
• Electronic billing and implementing electronic filing, library, and forms systems that have helped the company conserve paper, improve efficiency, and reduce the need for paper storage.
• CD-ROM and on-line directories

Throughout the region, old telecommunications equipment is given new life at three Investment Recovery Centers (IRCs), where surplus equipment and scrap materials such as copper, aluminum, iron, steel, and other metals are recycled. Over the past three years, tons of material has been recycled or redirected for reuse through the Investment Recovery Centers.

In addition BellSouth participates in a number of take-back and recycling programs for other materials. In 2003, in addition to the material handled by the IRCs, 1.6 million pounds of PCs/CRTs (personal computers/cathode ray tubes), 300,000 pounds of fleet batteries; 6.2 million pounds of stationary batteries; 22,000 pounds of tool batteries; 85,000 fluorescent tubes; 1,800 retread tires; and 50,340 used tires were recycled.

While BellSouth does not manufacture any hazardous substances, some of the products it procures for its daily operations do contain hazardous material. To ensure compliance with all environmental regulations, we are minimizing the use of hazardous materials by seeking alternatives and identifying ways to recycle or reuse any hazardous wastes we generate.

Energy Management

BellSouth has initiated numerous activities to address energy efficiency enhancements to its operations. These activities include demand side management projects, pilot programs to verify energy savings schemes, an internal grassroots awareness campaign, and the establishment of an Energy Council. BellSouth also began paying all utilities in July 2003 through a data management company. The data captured by this company allows BellSouth to more efficiently monitor and control the energy consumption at all facilities throughout the nine state region. The grassroots efforts have helped the company decrease energy consumption in select, large administrative buildings by an estimated 8% to 15% through increased energy awareness. Through these various activities in 2002, BellSouth improved the energy efficiency of our buildings and related operations, achieving a reduction in energy utility costs of approximately $2.5M.

Central Offices, the switching facilities through which telephone lines must pass, are significant energy users in the telecommunications industry. BellSouth was an initial partner in EPA’s Telecommunications Challenge to develop an energy efficiency-benchmarking tool for these facilities and has worked with the ENERGY STAR^® team and others to develop baseline data and benchmarks for the tool. The infrastructure required to operate the telecommunications industry is staggering and power is needed to operate it. Developing a benchmark to quantify the parameters of energy use at central offices around the country is a first step toward making an impact.

The company is also committed to developing and deploying new, ultra-efficient technologies. In 2002, the company joined EPA’s CHP Challenge, exploring the use of fuel cells and converting diesel engines to natural gas, many in combined heat and power applications. In early 2003, the DOE advertised a solicitation for fuel cell development for the telecommunications industry. BellSouth partnered with a major fuel cell manufacturer and submitted an application to the solicitation. The grant, in the amount of $3.3 M, was awarded to BellSouth and the fuel cell manufacturer to develop and field test a fuel cell back-up system specifically tailored for remote site telecommunications applications.

BellSouth's energy management efforts are being recognized by outside organizations. BellSouth is an ENERGY STAR Corporate Partner. Using the Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool, six BellSouth facilities have qualified for Energy Star Building labels in 2005, final certification is pending.

We received an energy efficiency award from the Energy User News at the World Energy & Engineering Congress in Atlanta in October 2002, and a BellSouth facility was featured in an ASHRAE journal article for the implementation of energy efficient Demand Control Ventilation.

BellSouth’s efforts have been and will continue to be successful in reducing energy use and energy intensity. The company’s ability to reduce its power consumption has a direct and significant impact on the air quality in our operating territory and overall greenhouse gas emissions by reducing our emissions and demand on the coal-fired power producers in our region.

Transportation Impacts

Global Positioning Systems

Through the use of GPS or "global positioning system" technology, BellSouth has created productivity improvements in numbers of jobs worked by each technician. GPS is integrated with our dispatch systems to identify the potential to gain efficiencies in dispatching our technicians. Using GPS data, managers work with technicians to improve efficiency, enabling us to provide customers with better service and achieve savings in gas, time, wear and tear on trucks and tires and reduce overall environmental impact.

The GPS system employed by BellSouth also has a built-in safety alert feature. Each vehicle can be activated to send a message to BellSouth's Network Reliability Center if assistance is needed. The message identifies the technician, the vehicle, the location and the telephone number of the local police. Technicians also carry a remote alert transmitter in their pocket that will activate the Alert feature when working outside the service truck.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is deployed in approximately 12,000 BellSouth service trucks to date.